The Golitsyn Predictions

[Adux]

The Golitsyn Predictions

by Mark Riebling

Even if one rejects Golitsyn's overall thesis -- viz., that Gorbachev's changes comprised a long-term strategic deception -- one must still acknowledge that Golitsyn was the only analyst whose crystal ball was functioning during the key period of the late 20th century.

When the Soviet Empire collapsed in 1989, the CIA was chastised for failing to foresee the change. "For a generation, the Central Intelligence Agency told successive presidents everything they needed to know about the Soviet Union," said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "except that it was about to fall apart."

Sovietologists both inside and outside CIA were indeed baffled, for their traditional method of analysis had yielded virtually no clues as to what Gorbachev would do. When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in February 1985, after the death of Konstantin Chernenko, analysts like Roy Medvedev preoccupied themselves with trivial details in the Soviet press, and gained no larger view. "The black mourning frame printed around the second page where the deceased leader's picture was run] looked rather narrow," Medvedev observed. "It was still, however, a millimeter broader than the frames used for the second-page announcements of the death of senior Politburo members like Marshal Ustinov, who had died a few months previously." There was nothing in the measurement of picture frames to suggest liberalization in the USSR; therefore, no one suggested it.

CIA's leadership acknowledged that fell short in predicting Gorbachev's reforms, but could provide no real excuse. "Who would have thought that just five years ago we would stand where we are today?" Acting Director Robert Gates told Congress in late 1991. "Talk about humbling experiences." Gates could have said: Our reporting was poor because our Moscow network was rolled up, coincidentally or not, precisely as Gorbachev was coming into power. Gates did not say this, however. Instead, he suggested that "We're here to help you think through the problem rather than give you some kind of crystal ball prediction." This anti-prediction line was echoed by the Agency's deputy director, Robert Kerr, who told Congress: "Our business is to provide enough understanding of the issue ... to say here are some possible outcomes.... And I think that's the role of intelligence, not to predict outcomes in clear, neat ways. Because that's not doable."

Yet someone had predicted glasnost and perestroika, in detail, even before Gorbachev came to power. This person's analysis of events in the communist world had even been provided to the Agency on a regular basis.

In 1982, KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn had submitted a top-secret manuscript to CIA. In it, he foresaw that leadership of the USSR would by 1986 "or earlier" fall to "a younger man with a more liberal image," who would initiate "changes that would have been beyond the imagination of Marx or the practical reach of Lenin and unthinkable to Stalin."

The coming liberalization, Golitsyn said, "would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the Communist Party's role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed.... The KGB would be reformed. Dissidents at home would be amnestied; those in exile abroad would be allowed to take up positions in the government; Sakharov might be included in some capacity in the government. Political dubs would be opened to nonmembers of the Communist Party. Leading dissidents might form one or more alternative political Censorship would be relaxed; controversial plays, films, and art would be published, performed, and exhibited."

Golitsyn provided an entire chapter of such predictions, containing 194 distinct auguries. Of these, 46 were not soon falsifiable (it was too early to tell, e.g., whether Russian economic ministries would be dissolved); another 9 predictions (e.g., of a prominent Yugoslavian role in East-Bloc liberalization) seemed clearly wrong. Yet of Golitsyn's falsifiable predictions, 139 out of 148 were fulfilled by the end of 1993 -- an accuracy rate of nearly 94 percent. Among events correctly foreseen: "the return to power of Dubcek and his associates" in Czechoslovakia; the reemergence of Solidarity" and the formation of a "coalition government" in Poland; a newly "independent" regime in Romania; "economic reforms" in the USSR; and a Soviet repudiation of the Afghanistan invasion. -Golitsyn even envisioned that, with the "easing of immigration controls" by East Germany, "pressure could well grow for the solution of the German problem [by] some form of confederation between East and West," with the result that "demolition of the Berlin Wall might even be contemplated."

Golitsyn received CIA's permission to publish his manuscript in book form, and did so in 1984. But at time his predictions were made, Sovietologists had little use for Golitsyn or his "new methodology for the study of the communist world." John C. Campbell, reviewing Golitsyn's book in Foreign Affairs, politely recommended that it "be taken with several grains of salt." Other critics complained that Golitsyn's analysis "strained credulity" and was "totally inaccurate," or became so exercised as to accuse him of being the "demented" proponent of "cosmic theories." The University of North Carolina's James R. Kuhlman declared that Golitsyn's new methodology would "not withstand rigorous examination. Oxford historian R.W. Johnson dismissed Golitsyn's views as "nonsense." British journalist Tom Mangold even went so far as to say, in 1990 -- well after Golitsyn's prescience had become clear -- that "As a crystal-ball gazer, Golitsyn has been unimpressive." Mangold reached this conclusion by listing six of Golitsyn's apparently incorrect predictions and ignoring the 139 correct ones.

Golitsyn's analysis was as little appreciated within CIA as it was in the outside world. "Unfortunate is the only term for this book," an Agency reader noted in an official 1985 review. A CIA analyst took Golitsyn to task for making "unsupported allegations without sufficient (or sometimes any) evidence," and for this reason would be "embarrassed to recommend the whole." Golitsyn's case, other words, was deductive: He had no "hard evidence," no transcript of a secret meeting in which Gorbachev said the would do all these things. Perhaps most fundamentally, as the philosopher William James once noted, "we tend to disbelieve all facts and theories for which we have no use." Who had any use, in the end, for Golitsyn's belief that the coming glasnost and perestroika would merely constitute the "final phase" of a long-term KGB strategy to "dominate the world"?

http://www.markriebling.com/predictions.html

 

[Adux]

From Wikipedia, I find this a very very interesting read

Anatoliy Golitsyn
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Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE (born August 25, 1926 in Piryatin, Ukrainian SSR) is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He supplied information about many important Soviet agents working in the West. He is an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and is now an American citizen.[1]

Contents [hide]
1 Defection
2 Controversies
2.1 Golitsyn and Nosenko
2.2 Accusing Harold Wilson
3 His books
3.1 New Lies for Old
3.2 The Perestroika Deception
4 Miscellaneous
5 References
6 Books
7 External links



[edit] Defection
Golitsyn worked in the strategic planning department of the KGB in the rank of Major. In 1961 under the name "Anatole Klimov" he was assigned to the Soviet embassy in Helsinki, Finland. He was completely fluent in English, and had great familiarity with contemporary American literature [citation needed]. He defected with his wife and daughter to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) via Helsinki in December 1961. He was flown to the United States and interviewed by James Jesus Angleton, CIA counter-intelligence director. In January 1962, the KGB sent instructions to fifty-four residents throughout the world on the actions required to minimize the damage. All meetings with important agents were to be suspended. [2]. In November 1962, KGB head Vladimir Semichastny approved a plan for assassination of Golitsyn and other "particularly dangerous traitors" including Igor Gouzenko, Nikolay Khokhlov, and Bogdan Stashinsky [2].

Golitsyn provided information about many famous Soviet agents including Kim Philby, Donald Duart Maclean, Guy Burgess, John Vassall, double agent Aleksandr Kopatzky who worked in Germany, and others [2]. It was only with the defection of Anatoliy Golitsyn in 1961 that Philby was confirmed as a Soviet mole.


[edit] Controversies

[edit] Golitsyn and Nosenko
In 1964, Yuri Nosenko, a KGB officer working out of Geneva, Switzerland, insisted that he needed to defect to the USA, as his role as a double-agent had been discovered, prompting his recall to Moscow [3] Nosenko was allowed to defect, although his credibility was immediately in question because the CIA was unable to verify a KGB recall order. Nosenko made two extremely controversial claims: that Golitsyn was not a double-agent but a KGB plant; and that he had information on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by way of the KGB's history with Lee Harvey Oswald in the time Oswald lived in the Soviet Union.

Regarding the first claim, Golitsyn had said from the beginning that the KGB would try to plant defectors in an effort to discredit him. Regarding the second claim, Nosenko told his debriefers that he had been personally responsible for handling Oswald's case and that the KGB had judged Oswald unfit for their services due to mental instability and had not even attempted to debrief Oswald about his work on the U-2 spy planes during his service in the United States Marine Corps. Although other KGB sources corroborated Nosenko's story, he repeatedly failed lie detector tests. Judging the claim of not interrogating Oswald about the U-2 improbable given Oswald's familiarity with the U-2 program and faced with further challenges to Nosenko's credibility (he also falsely claimed to be a lieutenant colonel, a higher rank than he held in fact), Angleton did not object when David Murphy, then head of the Soviet Russia Division, ordered him held in solitary confinement for approximately three-and-a-half years.

James Angleton came to public attention in the United States when the Church Commission (formally known as the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities), following up on the Warren Commission, probed the CIA for information about the Kennedy assassination. The Nosenko episode does not appear to have shaken Angleton's faith in Golitsyn, although Helms and J. Edgar Hoover took the contrary position. Hoover's objections are said to have been so vehement as to curtail severely counterintelligence cooperation between the FBI and CIA for the remainder of Hoover's service as the FBI's director.


[edit] Accusing Harold Wilson
Golitsyn was a figure of significant controversy within the Western intelligence community. He claimed that Rt Hon. Harold Wilson (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) was a KGB informer and an agent of influence. Harold Wilson had very friendly relations with Joseph Stalin's henchmen Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov. He had conversations with them and other Soviet officials on numerous occasions. According to Mitrokhin Archive, his information on British politics was highly rated by the KGB. An "agent development file" was opened in the hope to recruit Harold Wilson, and the codename "OLDING" was given to him. However "the development did not come to fruition" according to the KGB file records [2]. Golitsyn also accused the KGB of poisoning Hugh Gaitskell, Wilson's predecessor as leader of the Labour Party, in order for Wilson to take over the party. Gaitskell died after a sudden attack of lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disorder, in 1963. Golitsyn's claims about Wilson were supported by the senior MI5 counterintelligence officer Peter Wright.[4]


[edit] His books

[edit] New Lies for Old
In 1984, Golitsyn published the book New Lies For Old[1], wherein he predicted the collapse of the communist bloc orchestrated from above. He warned about a long-term deception strategy designed to to lull the West into a false sense of security, and finally economically cripple and diplomatically isolate the United States. Among other things, Golitsyn stated:

"The 'liberalization' [in the Soviet Union] would be spectacular and impressive. Formal pronouncements might be made about a reduction in the communist party's role; its monopoly would be apparently curtailed."
"If [liberalization] should be extended to East Germany, demolition of the Berlin Wall might even be contemplated."
"The European Parliament might become an all-European socialist parliament with representation from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. 'Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals' would turn out to be a neutral, socialist Europe."
Author Mark Riebling stated that of 194 predictions made in New Lies For Old, 139 had been fulfilled by 1993, 9 seemed 'clearly wrong', and the other 46 were 'not soon falsifiable'.[2]


[edit] The Perestroika Deception
In 1995 Golitsyn published another book The Perestroika Deception where he claimed:

"The [Soviet] strategists are concealing the secret coordination that exists and will continue between Moscow and the 'nationalist' leaders of [the] 'independent' republics."
"The power of the KGB remains as great as ever... Talk of cosmetic changes in the KGB and its supervision is deliberately publicized to support the myth of 'democratization' of the Soviet political system."
"Scratch these new, instant Soviet 'democrats,' 'anti-Communists,' and 'nationalists' who have sprouted out of nowhere, and underneath will be found secret Party members or KGB agents."
These views have been supported and promoted by American conservative groups. However Perestroika was a much bigger event than merely a disinformation campaign. [5]. GRU defector Stanislav Lunev sees this slightly differently: "The Cold War is not over; the new Cold War is between the Russian mafia and the United States" (he considers the FSB as a part of Russian mafia). [6]

The beginning of Perestroika was decided at the meeting of the Soviet Politburo on March 26, 1987. Mikhail Gorbachev justified his new policy as a necessary step to "hug Europe to death" and "evict the United States from Europe." These words have been excluded from his published books. [7]

On June 8, 1995, the British Conservative Member of Parliament Christopher Gill quoted The Perestroika Deception during a House of Commons debate, saying "It stretches credulity to its absolute bounds to think that suddenly, overnight, all those who were Communists will suddenly adopt a new philosophy and belief, with the result that everything will be different. I use this opportunity to warn the House and the country that that is not the truth," and "Every time the House approves one of these collective agreements, not least treaties agreed by the collective of the European Union, it contributes to the furtherance of the Russian strategy." [8]

Vladimir Bukovsky said: "In 1992 I had unprecedented access to Politburo and Central Committee secret documents which have been classified, and still are even now, for 30 years. These documents show very clearly that the whole idea of turning the European common market into a federal state was agreed between the left-wing parties of Europe and Moscow as a joint project which Gorbachev in 1988-89 called our "common European home." (interview by The Brussels Journal, February 23, 2006).


[edit] Miscellaneous
Golitsyn's views are shared by leading Czech dissident and politician Petr Cibulka, who has alleged that the 1989 Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia was staged by the communist StB secret police.

The 1996 American film Mission: Impossible featured a fictionalized character based on Anatoliy Golitsyn named Alexander Golitsyn, played by actor Marcel Iures.

The 1992 PC adventure game KGB (Titled Conspiracy in The United States) by Cryo Games is based around the investigation into the murder of a man named Golitsin.

Angleton and Golitsyn reportedly sought the assistance of William F. Buckley, Jr. (himself once a CIA man) in writing New Lies for Old. Buckley refused but later went on to write a novel about Angleton, Spytime: The Undoing of James Jesus Angleton.[9]


[edit] References
^ Arnold Beichman, New lies for old: the communist strategy of deception and disinformation. - book reviews, National Review, September 7, 1984
^ a b c d Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2000). The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West. Gardners Books. ISBN 0-14-028487-7.
^ Mangold, Tom. Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA's Master Spy Hunter. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. ISBN 0-671-66273-2.
^ Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher. New York and London: Viking Penguin Inc.
^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia--Past, Present, and Future. 1994. ISBN 0-374-52738-5.
^ Stanislav Lunev. Through the Eyes of the Enemy: The Autobiography of Stanislav Lunev, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998. ISBN 0-89526-390-4
^ New edition of documents of Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Interview with Pavel Stoilov. (Russian) - by Radio Free Europe
^ Christopher Gill MP, House of Commons Hansard Debates for 8 Jun 1995, Column 370
^ Buckley, William F., Jr. Spytime: the Undoing of James Jesus Angleton: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2000. ISBN 0-15-100513-3.

[edit] Books
Anatoliy Golitsyn. New Lies for Old G. S. G. & Associates, Incorporated, 1990, ISBN 0-945-00113-4
Anatoliy Golitsyn. The Perestroika Deception : Memoranda to the Central Intelligence Agency Edward Harle Ltd; 2nd Ed edition (1998) ISBN 1-899-79803-X

[edit] External links
The New American interview with Christopher Story, editor of The Perestroika Deception; part I, part II, part III
Anatoliy Golitsyn, Spartacus Educational website by John Simkin
Bombs Away, interview with Jeffrey Nyquist, 18 December 2004
Unmasking Spies, Then and Now, by Jeffrey Nyquist, Geopolitical Global Analysis, 01.06.2005
Memorandum to the CIA: 26 August 1991, by Anatoliy Golitsyn
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoliy_Golitsyn"

 

[Adux]

Am I changing into a conspiracy theorist. I find it intresting since what he predicted has already happened and to somewhat in the manner he did. But is it possible for the KGB to plan for something this long term, with the variable factors changing day in and day out. Or was their general plan which was very accomdating of the day to day happeneings.